Somewhere around July 7th, most e-tailers CHANGED the case packs for waves 2 and 2.5 cases.

From EE, wave 2:"UPDATE July 7, 2004 - Assortment Change. Lando Calrissian has been removed from this assortment by Hasbro. Please see item number HS85213B2. "

Lando got pulled and replaced with Han and Luke.

The case-pack of 2x Han, Luke, Vader, Yoda is how EE, NewForce, etc are all listing the wave 2 case now, and it has been confirmed by Cloud City, Brian's Toys, and ActionHQ all of whom got the wave 2 cases in this week. I would assume that this will end up being the case for SWShop.com too since their case pack is exactly how the old EE case pack was listed.

Jeff

Thanks for the heads up! I contacted SWS, and they confirmed that the case assortment had in fact been changed. In fact, it appears that they've pulled that case assortment from their Hasbro product listings. I hope they'll let me change my order.

Logged

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That is part of the whole puzzle with this thing. He is listed as part of Wave 1....but Wave 1.5 is the one that is shipping out to retailers and e-tailers. I have a feeling the original Wave 1 may be a casualty and just get written off.

Definitely looks like it so far. Most puzzling indeed, to have Mr. Re-released/Rehashed Tatooine Luke get left out of the mix for once. I've seen a good amount of the other ANH VOTC figures, so it's rather ridiculous to me to leave the most main character of the entire saga sitting on the sideline, just because Hasbro totally screwed up another case assortment.

I read in one of the Comic Con write ups somewhere last month that someone asked Hasbro in the Q & A there what the deal was with their ridiculous case assortments, and they said something to the effect that they were spot on with their market research showing what people wanted and in what quantities. Yeah, right.

But considering Hasbro's market research is usually done with just "kids", who they still think are the ones supporting the line, , it's not surprising that they're always a mile off on what they should actually be putting into their case assortments. What's sad, is that they're probably never going to learn, based on the fact that they're still making the same mistakes, if not worse ones, that they were making YEARS ago, which are often the cause of our many favorite pegwarmers over the years, as well as all the VHTF figures during that period of time too.

The bottom line is that it sucks that people can't just order by the case, and get what they need of the new figures. You'd think at least two of each new figure in the initial case that's shipped to retail (or e-tailers) wouldn't be such a hard thing to figure out. I think Hasbro intentionally shortpacks key figures, or leaves them out entirely, forcing their various purchasers to have to buy additional separate cases to get them. That just stinks.

Looking around the net this morning and making visits to the local brick-and-mortar stores has made me practically give up on finding a lot of the VOTC figures from here on out. Why? Glad you asked, I'll be happy to tell you.

Hasbro had a great opportunity to do something logical for once with the VOTC stuff, and something that every other toy maker has been doing from before POTF2 existed: a new case number for every assortment of figures. That way, there would be no need or use for strange case ratios or repacks from earlier waves of figures, or what have you because if they ran out of one case, they just reordered another case of those figures. If they had too many of one case, they didn't order any more of that case. Here's how I would have handled this in a perfect world:

Each of these assortments would have their own case number (meaning they wouldn't all be part of one case number shipped in multiple ratios and could all be ordered separately).

But as we've all learned, logic has no place in Pawtucket, so they decide to pull the main character of the whole damned OT (regardless of what GL says about Anakin/Vader) out of the first assortment altogether, do multiple ratios of the ESB figures so two come out first and we have to wait on the other two, while the same cases continue to ship figures that are already in abundance from the overshipped first wave, and then they sit on the third wave (with the figure that most people would happily buy multiples of) and then ship even more of the first wave with those cases.

What makes it worse is the report on GH.com this morning that WMs will be getting another kiosk and it will be stocked to the brim with MORE of the first wave, plus Luke (finally). Great move there, Hasbro.

I'm not Nostradamus (or even Negrodamus, even though I think Paul Mooney is hilarious), but I can tell you exactly how things are going to go down with the VOTC this fall.

-The shelves will be clogged with Obi-Wans and Hans to such a degree that when the ESB figures do show up in slightly bigger numbers, they will come and go so quickly that most people won't even know they were there. Even sites that sell individual figures for a decent price (TRU.com) won't be able to carry the ESB figures for long because of the quick sellouts and the fact that they will still have a backlog of Hans and Bens.

-the ROTJ wave, once it hits, will hit in VERY small numbers as the stores will be so full of the first wave of Hans and Bens that they have no space for them and hence do not order any more cases. People will be scooping them up like crazy when they do see them and Ebay profiteers will be the best (read: most unscrupulous) and only outlet for people who want these figures.

-when told about the difficulty people are having finding them, Hasbro will resort to their time-tested "retailers overordered the initial waves and even though we made a full run of the later figures, retail just didn't seem interested in them" in order to once more pass the buck for their continuing ******* stupidity in being able to gauge demand and accept responsibility for their own mistakes.

(oh, and is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that retail is always at fault? They never order just enough: if there is too much of something, well, retail overordered...if too little, well, retail underordered. It's never Hasbro's fault. Never mind the fact that their case assortment strategy is straight out of 1985 and that they can't figure out case packouts to save their lives)

-once again, as in the past with the "final" waves of figure assortments, we, the collectors who regardless of what the geniuses at Hasbro claim actually keep this line afloat in the first place, movie year or not, will be the ones who get the short end of the stick. And Hasbro will, predictably, still not give a **** about us.

The best analogy I can give as far as the VOTC scenario I have put forth above, overreacting as it may be, is this:

Way to go Hasbro. You've proven yet again why you're a bunch of morons.

I'm not ready to be quite so pessimistic. The beginning of the Episode 1 Collection was extrememly overproduced. The end was underproduced. Those figures are hard to find because Hasbro was killing the line (which they'd had every intention of keeping going indefinitely) and just plain shut down the factory in the middle of production.

The VOTC, on the other hand, was a limited project from the get-go, more akin to the Target exclusive Clone Wars Cartoon figures. Case breakdowns made it hard to find some of the second wave figures at first, but eventually it all evened out. The truly popular figures (Yoda, Clones a little) sold quicker, the dogs (Dooku, Durge) sat until clearanced, but everything was available if you looked for it.

The end of the line does usually make it harder to find something, but only for a time. If the figures are produced in equal numbers, they'll be out there, but (like BoShek and Pilot Cinema Scenes and Ephant Mon) they might take a while to show up.

My worst case scenario is not finding these until they get blown out at TRU or KB in 2006. Just like I'll be sorting through shirtless Kit Fistos looking for posable Clone Wars Clones next Christmas.

Last night I saw the WM floor display with tons of Luke and Han and nice amounts of Leia and Obi. Good for Luke and Leia - bad for Han and Obi. Han is already a major pegwarmer here. I'm not too worried about the later waves - I've seen the ESB one a few times now - but finding the Stormtrooper was never going to be easy.

It is much the same around here too, Han can basically be found at every store. It is kind of surprising, because I think it is a tremendous figure, and the best Han ever made. Plus, I was always under the impression that Han Solo was pretty popular (with fans and kiddos alike). Maybe just to many of them, or maybe kiddos and casual buyers are opting for the $4.99 OTC repack Han instead. Anyways, each store I visited this weekend (2 Targets, 2 Wal-Marts, TRU) all had at least 3 Hans (usually more). Obi-Wan and Leia were also easy to find at Wal-Mart, and one Wal-Mart had multiples of all of these figures, as well as probably at least 10 Lukes. On the other hand, the regular OTC figures continue to be tough finds. One Target had a case or so out, but the rest it was 1-2 figures, or none at all. I'm slightly concerned about the ESB and ROTJ waves as well. I was placing an order for birthday gifts for my wife via Amazon this morning, and see that they have the VOTC Vader (as well as Luke/Yoda) in stock, so I went ahead and tacked on a Vader to the order. It just never seems like you see a Vader sit, so since I was ordering there anyways (and spreading shipping out), I just went ahead and got one. I hope the rest of these figures aren't impossible to find.

SilverZ

I wonder if they actually received some cases, because last week the 2.5 case went from being "PRE-SOLD OUT" to "September" to now "November" on the site. Lots of activity. I'm better money I'll find my 1 needed Yoda, 2 Landos, and 2 3P0s long before they get their next shipment from almighty Hasbro. Let me take this latest screwing to remind Hasbro of something:

It looks like Retail is getting first crack at the 2.5 cases though because I found 3PO and Lando last night, I think I may cancel both of my 2.5 orders...I agree with DP, Hasbro has had their heads up their asses for so long on case ratios its not even funny

It is amazing though that OTC seems to be selling fairly well, Cantina Han and some of the other POTF2 figures are sitting but most of the stuff seems to be moving alright

August, then September, now November! We skipped right by October! At this rate, I'll end up getting the 2005 waves (due in Nov) before the ESB vOTC figures!

I think I'll just head on over there and cancel my wave 2.5 pre-order. I've already got Vader and Yoda (thanks Scott!) and Lando is in the wave 3 case I pre-ordered, so I just need to track down a couple 3PO at retail. Not too hard I hope, especially since they are hitting the area now...

I have been back and forth since we first heard of the release of the VOTC, about preordering case(s) or not. I never have before, and we can't really take that big of a hit at once (for the cost of a case), so I've held off. Sounds like it has really been screwy, and it seems like many people are finding these at retail long before cases ship anyways. I don't know if I've read of anyone's posts about receiving their case for any particular e-tailer...single figures, yes...but not cases. Like Scott mentioned, retail must be getting first crack at these...which is just fine, as long as everyone can find them .

Well, I was really stupid and ordered wave 2.5 from SWS.com . Oh, who the hell knows where the package is but it is SUPPOSE to be on it's way to me with no tracking number (they blamed fed-ex for that). I'm not really sure if they are even in possession of this wave yet (and since I need 5 of the 8 figures, I'd be a nice score for me) but at least I know it's possible since Scott found Lando and Threepio.